Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  “Who indeed?” said Amanda. “Who do you think did it?”

  “It was our old friend Moriarty,” interrupted a student in the back row. “Right?”

  “Right. Or it would have been if it had been real. Moriarty is the only one who could have done this. Do you know why?”

  “Why?” yelled the students.

  “Tell them, Miss Lester,” said Thrillkill.

  “Because Nick Muffet, aka Nick Moriarty, infiltrated our school and knew about the Bible. And he passed along this information to his mother, the cook’s assistant, who was working here under false pretenses. And she passed the information along to her husband, who is a descendant of the original Professor Moriarty.”

  The room exploded. All the kids were talking at once. Someone yelled out, “Do you mean to tell me that Nick Muffet is a Moriarty and infiltrated our school? And the teachers knew?”

  “Yes,” said Simon. “Nick was a Moriarty and did infiltrate the school. But no, the teachers didn’t know. They set up the project as an exercise. It just turned out to be much more realistic than they expected.”

  “I’ll kill him,” yelled the student. “Just let me at him.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t,” said Professor Thrillkill.

  “I will. You can’t stop me.”

  “I don’t have to,” said Thrillkill. “Mr. Muffet, nee Moriarty, is dead.”

  The room fell silent so quickly that it seemed like all the air had gone out of it.

  It was a good thing that Amanda had bawled all the way home from London, or else she would have burst into tears upon hearing this now. But she didn’t. She just stood there calmly and waited.

  “What happened, Professor?” said the student. “How did he get in? How did he die?”

  “That is a story for another time,” said Thrillkill.

  No one said anything for a long time and then another student raised her hand and said, “Why did they blow up the entire garage? Why not just steal the book?”

  Amanda stepped forward and spoke with as much gravitas as she could muster. “To show us that it can be done.”

  “You mean it was a warning?” said the student.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “It showed us that we must always be vigilant.” She turned to Thrillkill. “Isn’t that right, Professor?”

  “Yes, Miss Lester,” said the headmaster. “That is exactly why it was done.”

  37

  More Questions Than Answers

  Holmes House ended up winning the competition, which delighted Amanda, Simon, Ivy, Amphora, and Editta. Headmaster Thrillkill was so impressed with their performance that he removed Simon’s provisional status and upgraded him to “permanent,” which was a huge relief to just about everyone. Unfortunately, the verdict angered the Wiffle boy and his friend, Gordon Bramble. Their group, Van Helden House, had come in last. They seemed to feel that they had been cheated, despite the fact that they had identified Professor Pickle as the target of the bomb and missed the existence of the Detective’s Bible altogether. Some people couldn’t see the truth when it was staring them in the face.

  After the presentation, the Holmes House team was sitting in the common room, which the gremlins had filled with exotic plants and an aquarium full of tetras. Amanda’s parents had given her some imported chocolate—“imported” being from the U.S.—and the kids were munching it. It was sweet and delicious but Amanda didn’t care anymore.

  “How could they blow up all those cars?” said Amphora, tearing the wrapping slowly so as to savor the treat.

  “They didn’t. Not really,” said Amanda, who had stopped eating halfway through. “Nigel, that isn’t for you.” She grabbed the bar and held it out of the dog’s reach.

  “I don’t follow you,” said Amphora, licking her fingers.

  “They made replicas of everything. You don’t think they’d really blow up all that valuable stuff, do you? Get away, Nigel. Chocolate isn’t good for dogs.”

  “They ruined the garage,” said Ivy. “Nigel, get over here.”

  “Yes, and that’s a pity. But it can be rebuilt. It wasn’t exactly a historical building,” said Amanda. “And of course, the Bible wasn’t the real one.”

  “Wow. Imagine all the time and trouble it took to do that,” said Ivy, ruffling Nigel’s fur.

  “Yes,” said Simon. “There seems to be a lot more to this school than I thought.” He tilted his fedora and put his feet up on a battered table.

  “You got that right,” said Amanda.

  “Of course we all know why Nick stayed in the garage all that time that day when the roof collapsed,” said Ivy.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “He was looking for the Detective’s Bible.”

  “But how did he know about it?” said Ivy.

  “I don’t know,” said Amanda. “The cook, Mrs. Moriarty, and the doctor weren’t supposed to know anything about it, but obviously either they or someone else found out and told the criminals. The idea of the class project was to simulate a perpetrator who knew. The irony of the situation is that Nick really did know.”

  “What’s in this Bible, anyway?” said Simon.

  “Good question,” said Amanda. “Anyone know anything?”

  “No,” said Editta, “but it’s obviously important. What would happen if it really were destroyed?”

  “I don’t know,” said Amanda. “And we also don’t know where the real book is. But now that the cat’s out of the bag—sorry, Nigel—obviously something is going to come up about it. They can’t just sweep this under the rug, and anyway if they made it part of the project they wanted us to know, right?”

  “Obviously,” said Simon. “But what and why? Or could this just be them feeding us misinformation again? They’re really good at that.”

  “Yeah,” said Amanda. “Thrillkill makes a big deal out of how we need to trust him, but I don’t. Not any of them, even Professor Kindseth.”

  “Professor K seems like a nice man,” said Ivy.

  “That’s the most dangerous kind,” said Simon.

  “So what happened to the detonator?” said Amphora. “Why couldn’t we find it?”

  “Nick removed it,” said Amanda. “He went out the back door. Simon and I found it hidden in the bushes behind the garage.”

  “Why would he do that?” said Ivy.

  “To trip us up,” said Amanda. “They teach them that at that school of theirs. Or they did. Did you know that?”

  “Teach what?” said Simon.

  “They give classes in undermining their enemies. Tampering with evidence is just one of their methods. They’ll do anything to further themselves, even the tiniest things. It’s how they think.”

  “Wow,” said Ivy. “That’s scary.”

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “You can’t take anything for granted around those people. They’re way more insidious than I’d ever imagined. It makes you suspicious of everyone and everything.”

  “I’m so sorry, Amanda,” said Ivy. “I know how much you liked him.”

  “Thanks, Ivy. You want the rest of this? I’ve sort of lost my taste for sweets. I keep seeing Nick’s face every time I look at a piece of cake.” She handed the rest of her chocolate to Ivy, who took a good sniff and popped it in her mouth. “You want to know the most ironic part of all of this? He and I joked about there being a mole on campus. We thought it might be one of the teachers. We even made a bet.”

  “That’s tough,” said Ivy. “What you went through was so traumatic. But you were quick-witted. How did you manage?”

  “As you know, conflict is key to a story. Without it the story doesn’t move forward. Which is why sometimes it’s not so bad getting sent to detention or being yelled at. You never know what can come out of it. Anyway, I decided to create conflict. I got the Moriartys fighting with each other and I got Nick struggling with himself.”

  “That was brilliant,” said Editta reaching for her third chocolate. “This is it. Three is my limit. It’s bad luck to eat more.”r />
  “I’m going to have five,” said Amphora. “Yes, excellent, Amanda. We’re all really impressed.”

  “Thank you,” said Amanda. “I do have a bit of news.”

  “What’s that?” said Simon.

  “Thrillkill has asked me to teach a storytelling seminar next term. He thinks some of the concepts could be useful to us. I’m really excited about it.”

  “Wow!” said Amphora. “That sounds amazing. I can’t wait. Can we study J.K. Rowling?”

  Amanda thought back to her brief time in Edinburgh, where the famous author lived. Maybe sometime she’d go back and see if she could find her house. “You betcha. Someday I’m going to meet her, too.”

  “By the way,” said Simon, “remember that first day we saw the cook wheeling sugar around? What was that about? That was the good sugar, not the pink stuff, right?”

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “She was taking it around to the driveway the long way so no one would see her. As you know, there aren’t many windows on that side. After she turned south, she’d be going around the front of the school where almost no one hangs out. There was a van parked on the far side of the garage waiting to pick up the stash. That was where she was headed.”

  “But that was a lot of sugar for her to handle,” said Amphora.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “That was why Nick and his mother helped her. With the three of them carrying both the white and the pink sugar there was enough muscle to move large quantities, even up and down those stone stairs going to the secret room. When they got the white sugar to the factory, it was repackaged and smuggled into competitors’ facilities with just enough of the pink stuff in it to ruin it. That destroyed the competitors’ supplies, and then the criminals could sell the uncontaminated sugar at high prices.

  “Of course the rest of the pink sugar went into making ammunition for those weapons. They processed all three kinds at the factory: the good white stuff, the infected white stuff, and the pink stuff. They had a real problem when that slime mold started eating the pink sugar, though. It almost ruined their plans. It didn’t take a lot of it to make everything work, so they never produced that much. Of course the doctor and the cook were the ones who made it in our very own lab. And by the way, that blood you saw? That belonged to the original dead bodies teacher. He was in on it. They killed him too.”

  “What a racket,” said Simon. “That guy Nick turned out to be even more of a jerk then I thought he was.”

  “Not as big a one as I’ve been,” said Amanda under her breath.

  When Amanda returned to her room that evening, she finally got a chance to ask Ivy about something that had been bugging her since her trip to London. “Why did you tell me to punch those numbers on the keypad at the sugar factory?”

  “Oh, you mean 1, 3, and 4? They make up an augmented fourth chord. The devil’s interval.” Ivy sounded out the notes one at a time.

  “Devil’s interval?”

  “Diabolus in musica: the devil in music. It was banned in Renaissance church music because it was considered ugly and you couldn’t use anything ugly to praise God. Hear how discordant that sounds?”

  “Kind of. So you’re saying that the criminals chose it because they see themselves as working with the devil?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How in the world did you figure that out?”

  “I told you before. I hear things.”

  “I think I should start paying more attention to my ears, Ivy. I’m really impressed. You’re an amazing detective. By the way, speaking of amazing detectives, do you have any idea why Professor Thrillkill is always carrying that hair dryer around?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t know. He has a morbid fear of icicles. He carries it around so he can melt them.”

  Amanda burst into laughter and the two girls got so hysterical that they rolled on the floor. This got Nigel’s attention and he started licking them, which made them laugh even harder.

  Suddenly Amanda’s phone rang. It was one of the investigators who had processed the remains of the sugar factory. She told Amanda that they had found her phone but all the data was gone, video clips and everything.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “You will get the phone back though. By the way, I wanted to tell you what great thinking it was to set off those sprinklers. You’re going to make a great detective someday.”

  “Thanks,” said Amanda. “I appreciate your taking the time to call.”

  “I wouldn’t have necessarily,” said the woman. “It’s just that I thought you might find something funny.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It seems that the scene of the explosion is completely covered with ants. All that sugar water attracted them by the millions. The other factories in the area are beside themselves. They’ve had to call the exterminator.”

  After she had ended the call, Amanda decided to write to Darius Plover to tell him how much she appreciated his help. But as she looked at the screen on her new phone, she spied a text she hadn’t seen before. It was weeks old. She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t noticed it. Maybe it was because her phone had been out of commission.

  Astonishingly, the text was from Nick. He’d obviously sent it before the whole London thing. She didn’t want to read it. Thinking about him was too painful. But then she saw that he’d sent her a link to some sort of app. If this is a virus . . .

  What would it matter? All the data was gone. A virus couldn’t hurt her. Why not look?

  She read the message. It said, “4 U Amanda. Thought it might help.”

  What could Nick possibly have given her that would help now? He really was slick. Now he was trying to hurt her from the grave.

  Whatever, she thought, and tapped the icon. There on the screen was some kind of cloud storage app, and on her user dashboard was the name of every video clip she’d made for their investigation. She hadn’t lost the film after all! Nick had installed an app on her phone that had automatically archived everything she’d shot.

  She threw the phone onto the bed. He had done this nice thing for her, a girl who by all rights was his archenemy. There was no need to. He could have just as easily planted some kind of malware on her phone, and yet he hadn’t. Who was this Nick Muffet, aka Moriarty?

  She wanted to scream at him. How could he do this to her? She had resolved all her feelings about him, or at least she’d thought so. Now she’d have to start all over, without ever being able to talk to him again. Why, why, why?

  There was one thing she could do. It would take some time, but somehow, some way, she’d go see his father, Blixus Moriarty. Not tomorrow, but someday. And then, one way or another, she’d learn the truth.

  She opened up her mail program and started a new message.

  Dear Mr. Plover,

  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I want to tell you how invaluable your advice has been. You told me not to micromanage. You told me to persevere. And you told me to trust the story.

  I have just begun to learn these things. It will take a lifetime to get there, but it doesn’t matter. What’s important is the process and giving myself over to it. How right you were.

  I will soon be thirteen and will no longer be able to offer you a tween’s perspective on your films, but I hope that won’t keep you from calling on me. I would be delighted to offer a teen’s perspective if you’ll have me.

  Sincerely, your friend

  Amanda Lester,

  Filmmaker.

  As soon as she had sent the note, she received a text from Professor Thrillkill asking her to come to his office. This was going to be it: her expulsion. She’d broken the rules by leaving campus, and despite the positive results she’d achieved he was going to go by the book and kick her out. It was probably for the best. She’d go back to L.A. and resume her old life, minus the stick dogs. That’s what she’d wanted anyway.

  When she arrived at the headmaster’s office, Thrillkill motioned for her to sit in
front of that huge antique desk of his. He looked particularly stern and Amanda braced herself. Then suddenly he broke into a grin.

  “Miss Lester, I want to talk to you about next term.”

  Here it comes. I’m out. He must think this is funny to be smiling like that.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have a little assignment for you when you come back from your holiday.”

  I’m coming back?

  “You thought we were going to expel you, didn’t you?” he said, his grin widening. She’d never seen this expression on him before. It looked weird. “On the contrary, despite the fact that you broke the rules by leaving campus, we see a lot of promise in you.”

  Promise? Me?

  “There’s going to be a new student at Legatum next term, and I’d like you to take him under your wing.” He moved some papers around on his desk until he found the one he wanted.

  “Yes, sir. Of course. No problem.”

  He held up a page for her to see. She couldn’t read a thing with him moving it around like that.

  “Good. I’m glad you feel that way. He’s a very special young man and I think he would benefit from some personal attention. You’ll like him. His name is Scapulus Holmes.”

  Legatum Continuatum Class Descriptions

  Crime Lab. This is a very serious class in which you will learn to analyze substances, fibers, and other physical evidence, including weapon trajectories and blood spatter patterns. Students will be trained to be incredibly picky so as not to ruin evidence and end up with a mistrial. We will meet with Crown Prosecutors who will explain to us just what happens when you mess up. Believe me, it can get pretty ugly.

  Criminals and Their Methods. In order to be a great detective you need to think like a criminal, and that’s exactly what you’ll learn in this class. We will cover types of criminals and their characteristics, from petty thieves and kleptomaniacs to terrorists and serial killers. Students will also become familiar with criminal techniques from lock-picking to creating explosions, as well as criminal motivation. Yes, there will be some overlap with the profiling class, but you won’t mind because each teacher takes a different approach and it will be really interesting. Oh, and there’s a special unit on butlers, which you won’t want to miss.